This little pig goes post modernist in Australian schools

For a generation of young [Australian] readers, Mem Fox's Feathers and Fools is an enchanting story about peacocks, swans and the ugliness of war. In the eyes of the postmodernist critics, however, it is a skilful piece of propaganda for the cause of male supremacy. A teaching guide used in secondary schools around the country encourages students to "deconstruct" children's picture books such as Feathers and Fur and to "unpack" the concealed ideology. The peacocks become the dominant males -- "taller, leading the way, intitiating the dialogue, having the ideas" -- while the cygnets are "smaller, fluffy and dependant".

Twenty years after postmodern theory stormed university humanities departments, it is working its way into Australian classrooms, politicising the study of books, films and emails, now grouped under the catch-all of "texts". The culturally relativist theory, which teaches that there is no such thing as objective truth, has largely fallen out of fashion on university campuses. But the new lease of life it has been given in secondary education, under the guise of "critical literacy", is a trend Mem Fox finds "engraging". "It just drives you mad, it really does," she told The Weekend Australian yesterday. "You'd have thought academia had moved on from this ... I don't think people are as stupid as that any more, to tell you the truth."

For Australian academics John Stephens, Ken Watson and Judith Parker, compilers of the manual From Picture Book to Literary Theory, the story of the Three Little Pigs is really about "the virtues of property ownership and the safety of the private domain" -- both "key elements of liberal/capitalist ideology". The editors describe Widow's Broom, by Chris Van Allsburg, as a modern "rethinking of witches, situating them within particular historical conditions in which social, economic and political power narrowly defined women's roles". Even apparently politically-correct books, such as Anthony Browne's Piggybook, in which a mother rebels against her chauvanist husband and sons, has hidden subversive meanings. "Her victory is merely the exchange of one chore for another," the editors claim. "All the characters may be smiling but the mother is still outside the family frame."

Critical literacy has been described by one of its champions, Allan Luke, a former Queensland education bureaucrat and lecturer at the University of Queensland's Graduate School of Education who now teaches in Singapore, as a "radical educational idea" that has moved from the "political outlands to become a key concept in state curriculum". Professor Luke's influence has been felt in the Queensland English syllabus, which pays particular attention to the ideas of critical literacy.

In Tasmania, the official school syllabus website describes how its practitioners "deconstruct the structures and features of texts"; "no longer consider texts to be timeless, universal or unbiased"; ask "if the text presents unequal positions of power" and "work for social equity and change". "As we begin to analyse the powerful ways in which visual, spoken, written, multimedia and performance texts work and we discover the ways in which our feelings, attitudes and values are manipulated by language, we begin to operate powerfully within our world. We are able to become agents of social change working towards the removal of inequalities and injustices."

However the growing band of critics of critical literacy say the approach deprives students of the joy of reading for pleasure, excludes classical texts and ignores basic literacy skills. Catherine Runcie, honorary associate of the University of Sydney, described the impact of postmodern theory on schools as "a great pretentious movement of teachers pretending to be intellectuals". "School teachers and students have much more important things to do," Dr Runcie told The Weekend Australian. "They have basic learning and grammar to master. At university we're still marking grammar and we shouldn't be marking grammar after the age of 15. "Theory can't be taken on an empty stomach. "Before students can come to postmodern literature they need to know a lot of literature and a lot of philosophy."

Joseph Lo Bianco, professor of language and literacy at the University of Melbourne, told The Weekend Australian that critical theorists viewed books as "manipulations from various forces that need to be unmasked, or as an escapist bourgeois fantasy". "They are asking teachers to adopt a particular stance while masquerading as if it is not a stance," he said. "We need to teach language and teach it well; we need to teach awareness of language and some of this involves criticism of how language can be used manipulatively. But we also should teach creative, imaginative and articulate language use, both in speech and writing."

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ACADEMIC MERIT AN "ALSO-RAN" IN U.S. COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

On Monday night, reality TV finally lived up to its name. Millions of ABC viewers were treated to the finale of a dramatic contest--not to see who could eat the most insects but to see who would win a $250,000 college scholarship. Though the 10 high-school seniors who made it onto "The Scholar" had already been admitted to top colleges, the announcer's voice promised that the show's financial competition would mirror the admissions process. And it did.

The first thing you notice about the show's candidates is their race--four are black, one is Native American and one is Vietnamese. Sadly, that identification may be the first thing that college admissions officers are likely to notice too, in real life. Just in case viewers missed the idea behind such group membership, Melissa, who is half Bahamian and half Austrian-Jewish, is described on the show's Web site as being "sensitive to the plight of the minority." Of course in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Gratz v. Bollinger decision, college admissions officers are unlikely to keep a racial tally on paper--just in the back of their heads.

For the most part, the kids on "The Scholar" seem academically qualified, although it's hard to tell. It may just be a sign of rampant grade inflation that Alyssa from Yuba City, Calif., has a 4.67 GPA and Davis from Memphis, Tenn., has a 4.6. Scot from New Freedom, Pa., had only a 4.0, but then again he was home-schooled.

As viewers learned during the show's six episodes, skin color and grades are not enough to make you a winner in the college lottery, on TV or in real life. You also need a hard-luck story. Like real admissions officers, the judges on the show say they like to see not just where a kid ends up but where he starts too. (And you thought that your "Most Improved" softball-player trophy was just going to gather dust.)

Melissa had to cut short her gymnastics career at the age of 13 because of scoliosis. Jeremy's parents came from Vietnam and spent seven days on a boat with only a cup of water between them. Gerald experiences "occasional brushes with overt racism." There is no reason to belittle such hardship tales, but they have little to do with the students' actual accomplishments. As "The Scholar" shows, the college-admissions process has become a kind of victim pageant.

The students on the show are portrayed as financial victims, too--as if, according to that ominous announcer's voice, the "price of admission is threatening the American dream." This claim is the show's one glaring inaccuracy. Show me a black girl with a single mother, early admission to Harvard, near perfect SATs and a 4.0 GPA with AP classes in her schedule and I'll show you a girl on a full scholarship. Thanks to financial aid, for-profit colleges and public universities, everyone these days can afford some college. And poor students who get into elite colleges can count on financial help.

Still, there is nothing more heart-warming to a college administrator than a kid who comes from a poor background and who wants to succeed so that he can "give back to the community," a desire that just about all the contestants on "The Scholar" mention in one way or another. And the service imperative goes beyond the credentializing of high-school applicants. Indeed, community service has become a staple on every college campus. And it's easy to see why. Most college kids prefer ladling soup for the homeless to writing philosophy papers.

Where community service is popular, liberal politics can't be far behind. When one student on "The Scholar" is asked what global problem keeps her up at night, she explains that she is tormented by the ignorant people in our country who try to prevent stem-cell research from going forward. Another answers, "the Patriot Act," because it threatens our democracy. Arguably, both answers are defensible, but it is hard not to think of them, in this case, as reflexive platitudes.

"The Scholar" does feature contests that require students to know real facts, but the producers of the show have also picked up on another education mantra. "It's not what you know but how you use what you know," the host explains as the competitors are sent off to solve puzzles in teams. The kids who win the show's "Jeopardy"-like tests on literature or science advance to the next round, of course, but the judges also give the losers another shot if they demonstrate "teamwork" or "creativity."

Judging college admissions--or scholarships--by such fuzzy standards is absurd, not just because it destroys any notion of a meritocracy but also because it leads to a certain narcissism. Thus the contestants on "The Scholar" routinely say that they plan to change the world--really.

The level of self-obsession reaches its height, though, when Melissa is asked what famous person, dead or alive, she'd like to have dinner with. "Plato," she answers, noting that she has read his story about the cave and wants to discuss her own "process of self-discovery" with him. I'm sure Plato would have been fascinated.

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Why Homeschooling Continues to Grow

For evidence that the homeschooling movement is growing up, look no further than the crowd - and excitement - generated by the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships held in Oklahoma City. The 2004 athletic event - in its thirteenth year - drew 240 teams from 26 states, featured over 600 games, and attracted college coaches eager to scout players. In attendance was Texan Debbie Verwers, the mother of Stephen Verwers, a homeschool graduate, who currently plays for Colorado State University's basketball team. Upshot? The extracurricular athletic activities that exist for active home scholars is only one cultural indicator that homeschooling has graduated from its fledgling, countercultural beginnings in the 1970s into a more popular choice.

The early days of homeschooling were not without their own buzz. Grant Colfax's admission into Harvard in 1983 (he was also accepted to Yale) attracted wide attention because he had been homeschooled by his bookish, hard-working mother and father - David and Micki - on a ranch in northern California. The teenager's acceptance to the venerable New England institution was proof that a schooled-at-home (and homesteading) student could acquire the type of education necessary to gain entrance into one of the most selective schools in the world.

While home education wasn't a new phenomenon, young Colfax, as well as his adventuresome parents, served as the catalysts to awaken a sleeping giant. A generation of baby boomers, who were in the thick of parenting and who were dismayed at the bureaucratic mindset that had overtaken American public education, now had inspiration to take the educational road less traveled. The 'Colfax method' gained even more credibility when Grant's younger (and homeschooled) brothers - Drew and Reed - were subsequently admitted into Harvard.

Twenty years later the electrifying accomplishments of the Colfaxes have been slightly eclipsed by a new generation of homeschoolers, who are also crafting impressive vitae. For instance, when Calvin McCarter, age 10, a homeschooler from Michigan, won the 2002 National Geographic Bee, he became the youngest competitor to ever win the contest. Home scholar Kyle Williams has been a political columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, since he was twelve years old. After his book Seen and Heard was published, the then 14-year-old Williams weathered a media blitz that included television interviews with Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Bill Press, and Judy Woodruff.

Besides winning academic contests and enrolling in Ivy League schools, homeschoolers have been elected to public office, managed successful businesses, played on national sports teams, made a mark in Hollywood, authored popular books, graduated from law schools, and served in the armed forces. They show no signs of resting on their laurels. For its 1999 competition, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected 137 homeschoolers as semifinalists, and their numbers have steadily risen each year. In 2004, there were 250 homeschooled students selected as semifinalists. Given their small numbers, estimated by the U.S. Department of Education at approximately 1.1 million last year, only a cynic would find the achievements of homeschooled students unremarkable.

Homeschooling, like other grass-roots movements of the twentieth century, is largely a middle-American endeavor. Ponder this description of the 'typical' family: ".they are more likely than other students to live with two or more siblings in a two-parent family, with one parent working outside the home. Parents of homeschoolers are, on average, better educated than other parents - a greater percentage have college degrees - though their incomes are about the same. Like most parents, the vast majority of those who homeschool their children earn less than $50,000, and many earn less than $25,000" ("Homeschooling Here to Stay," 2003)...

But in an age of unprecedented technological innovation and mobility, one fact is clear: It's relatively easy and cost-effective for a youngster to bypass institutionalized schooling and receive a well-rounded education. Online classes, homeschool cooperatives, tutors, internships, volunteer work, travel, home businesses, hobbies, sabbaticals, even the great outdoors - these serve as gateways to the examined, enriched life.

One young Floridian - Jonathan Lord - has successfully combined several of these opportunities. The St. Petersburg Times reports, "Besides learning at home, Jonathan now takes math through a private tutor, creative writing classes at the co-op, chemistry through homeschooling classes offered at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, and dual-enrollment classes in English and Spanish at Pasco-Hernando Community College" (Miller, 2003).

Other enterprising teens have used the flexibility of schedule to pursue extracurricular pursuits that range from the flashy to the altruistic. Emoly West, a homeschool graduate and college freshman, will be competing in this year`s Miss Oklahoma competition. She has used past pageant prize winnings to pay for college tuition. At 17, Iowa homeschooler Kelby Fujan, passed the written test to obtain his airplane pilot's license while accruing almost 50 college credits. Sam Goodman, a young teen-aged homeschooler from Indiana, regularly volunteers at a community food bank and has earned an award for his service.

In contrast to public school students, who are grouped by age and not ability, who are expected to arrive and depart at particular times, and who are labeled "learning disabled" regardless of potential, homeschoolers can receive their instruction in a highly-individualized fashion, often beginning at an early age. Their parents have a clear idea where their interests lie and the style of learning most suited to them, without being hampered with worries about bullies, politicized curriculum, teachers' union squabbles, or the air quality of the buildings.

Parents and students with a bent toward high achievement at the tertiary level have even come to view homeschooling as a ticket to success in college. Writing in Signatures, a publication of Anderson University, Maryann Koopman (2003) reports that the Indiana school admits a "fair number of homeschoolers each year." Jim King , director of admissions at Anderson, offers this: " ... homeschooled students are better prepared for the 'independent learning' atmosphere of college than the typical school student ...." (Koopman, 2003)....

When it's all said - and by now a countless number of articles, commentaries, and research papers have been written about homeschooling - perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned is how important the concept of liberty is to the delivery of education. Parents must have opportunity to do what is right by their children and not be limited by geographic location, punitive state laws, or societal prejudices. When freedom and choice peacefully exist, students thrive, and, ultimately, society benefits. As Dr. Lines (2000) has stated, "The hard evidence suggests that the vast majority of homeschooling families are more active in civic affairs than public school families." It will be interesting to observe, in the coming years, what a generation of such civic-minded homeschooled individuals bring to the education reform debate.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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